Now We're Even... Or are we?

I was disappointed with how the green dress story came to be. The whole points system between Ted and Barney was really contrived from the get-go. (Why were they even keeping points in the first place??) I think the writers could have done a littler more with Barney and Lily in this episode. After all, around this time Lily is supposed to be having some pregnancy body issues. Just that fact that there wasn't even a slight nod to that shows that the writers were completely lost and just crapped this storyline out at the eleventh hour.

With that said, I always liked those moments of "but we'll get to that later." Maybe because I'm starting to heartily dislike the show, but they have always given me something to look forward to and a reason to keep watching. I can't believe I'm saying this, but even when the explanation is an obvious last-minute throw-together, I still feel that nostalgia and connection that I've felt in a few episodes way back when. I admired the way the writers have kept true to how a father would talk to his kids: such as "eating sandwiches", glossing over some of the sexual parts, and saying, "But we'll get to that later."

That's why I'm just trying to appreciate the show as a whole and covering my ears and singing during the bad parts. HIMYM has too good a concept for me to just criticize and abandon because of downhill script writing.

As for the times when the pay-off was pretty good: the goat storyline. What I liked most about how Future Ted brought up the goat is that it wasn't so much about "How the f- is there a goat in the bathroom?" as it was "What is going to happen between Robin and Ted that will result in Robin living with him next year?" In that sense, you didn't really care about the "pay-off" because you just wanted to know "why" not "how".

So, back with the green dress, I think it's better if we go back to that "Mermaid Theory" episode and realize that the whole bit with the allusion to the future was for the sake of showing us that in the near future, Lily will finally get pregnant--not so much that Ted will be wearing a dress. In that sense, the green dress bit would have gone down earlier in the pregnancy (or I guess earlier in the third trimester).

How Green Was My Dress

It's time that someone out there launched a petition for the How I Met Your Mother team to change the theme song to John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels," Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel" or some other wheel-related number, because spinning its wheels is really the only thing this show is consistently good at anymore. "Now We're Even" was the show's second non-episode in a row, where the majority of the half-hour was packed with filler except for one scene at the very, very end where some significant and/or emotionally resonant happened. Early on in the show's run, these kinds of aimless installments could be quite entertaining because we were still getting to know the show's characters and the slightly skewed version of reality they inhabit. With the gang now mostly shadows of their former, likable selves and the show's fictionalized New York looking more and more like Toon Town with each passing year, episodes like this only serve to expose just how rudderless the series has become as it stalls for time until the network takes mercy on us all and announces a firm end date.

Since "Now We're Even" had next to no narrative spine to speak of, let's just recap the episode's so-called events on a character-by-character basis:

Ted: Having temporarily gotten over that three-years-in-the-future vision of himself as a frozen dinner-eating hoarder shut-in, Ted discovered the benefits of living solo, including poor nutrition, copious nudity and re-watching old episodes of Sanford and Son just because you can. But he's repeatedly forced out of these pleasurable pastimes to serve as Barney's partner-in-crime on a series of increasingly outrageous escapades. When he finally puts his foot down and insists on staying home, his pal tricks him into getting locked out of his apartment sans cell phone, thus forcing him to make the trek to their old bar in his pajamas and call the super. Just another crazy night in the life of Ted Mosby. And to think someone once believed this guy was interesting enough to build a whole show around.

Barney: In case you've forgotten Barney's DATING A STRIPPER! And in case you forget that nugget again, he repeats it a bunch more times during the course of the episode in the spoken equivalent of caps lock. The pride of landing such a wicked cool girlfriend has seemingly inspired Barney to want to make every night a legendary night, whether the specific act of -- um, legendariness? -- is forming a mariachi band, bringing a horse into the bar or bungee jumping off the Statue of Liberty. But at the end of the episode, we discover the real reason for his manic obsessions with whooping it up every night between the hours of 9 PM and 4 AM is due to the fact that he's desperately trying to forget what his girlfriend does for a living. Just as in "Trilogy Time," Barney's brief bout of honesty is also the episode's only authentic moment. It's a crutch the writers are leaning much too heavily on of late, but that's because they know they've got an actor who is able to nail those scenes when the occasion demands it.

Robin: Robin's angry that no one at work recognizes her and then she gets stuck on traffic copter duty and then the helicopter pilot has a stroke and then she lands the helicopter herself and then she's famous. The end. Let us never speak of any of that again.

Lily and Marshall: Jason Segel mentally checked out of this show at least two seasons ago and with storylines like this, who can blame him? When Lily has a hot and heavy sex dream, Marshall gets obsessed with discovering the identity of her sleepytime suitor. Turns out it's Ranjit, the ex-taxi driver turned limo driver that has essentially become the gang's personal chauffeur. Marshall is sufficiently tweaked by the idea that he can't go through with the romantic dinner he had planned with Lily and instead winds up breaking bread with Ranjit while she runs to confide in Quinn of all people. Since when did they become confidants? In the end, though, the couple gets over themselves just long enough to realize how stupid this whole plotline is and just agree to accept Marshall's interpretation that Lily is turned on by good dads. Don't worry Jason -- you've only got one season left of this crap and then you can devote the rest of your life to generating movies where you make out with hot brunettes in between flashing your penis and/or buttocks. That's better material than HIMYM has given you in ages.

Barney, who's dating a stripper by the way, tries to make every night legendary.

This wasn't one of Season 7's best in my opinion, but I liked Barney's explanation for his actions at the ending. But in the words of Bob Saget, "we'll get to that later." Robin's career has taken off but people at the station, like the security guard, still don't recognize her. So she's a little bummed when she's in a helicopter doing the lousy traffic report. However, she gets the recognition she deserves when she successfully lands the copter when the pilot has a stroke. Lily has another crazy sex dream but won't tell an infuriated Marshall, until he "finds out" it's Ranjit. (Nice to see Ranjit again, by the way) And in the A plot, once Ted has moved into his new apartment, Barney wants him out making the most of every night. After some crazy events unfold, Ted wants an explanation. After bragging about his girlfriend being a stripper, Barney collapses and admits it's not a good thing. And by that he means he doesn't like Quinn out every night at the club doing who knows what on who knows who. It freaks him out but Ted is there to comfort him and overall it's still a decent episode as we get to see Barney's sensitive side.

Not quite what i expected

I'm not going to lie, pretty much the entire reason I was hyped for this episode, was because it was the episode where Ted finally wore that green dress. When I saw the summery, I expected Ted and Barney to compete in who could come up with a more Legendary night. I loved all the crazy things that Barney kept trying to get Ted to do. Another highlight of the episode, for me, was the Robin storyline. She finally becomes famous, though, not quite how she wanted. One of the best parts of the episode was when everyone's storylines just kindof stopped, while everyone waited to see what happened to Robin. The part that wowed me at the end of it, was when she called everyone to tell her she was alight, execpt for Ted, that kinda blew me back a bit. The only big downside of the episode was the Lily and Marshall storyline. I feel like it should've been more about the Lily and Barney fight, and less about the whole sex dream plotline, that plot could've fit in any other episode, and would've done better, in my opinion. Although, I do understand that they were probably trying to setup for Marshall's freakout in the next episode, but I just feel that it shouldn't have been put in an episode where its already been established that Lily was doing something else.

Another thing, that bothered me, was throughout the season, they have made references of Barney still thinking that Lily is hot, even while she was pregnant, like the sextape storyline from earlier this season. I really felt like they were setting up for this fight of Barney not thinking she's "hot" anymore. That whole part of MArshall and Lily just felt so out of place. Lets just hope that the remaining episodes are a little more on track.

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